This is a difference of opinion, but I've been using and promoting Free Software since 1997. I've used entirely 100% Free operating systems.
There's nothing wrong with taking this position for oneself. You can certainly restrict yourself to a 100% Free stack, but there are two big problems with this position:
1. We have an existing threat right now that is not theoretical but entirely practical and immediate, and that is the surveillance system built into every smart phone that runs a proprietary OS- or roughly 3.5 billion devices. In 2020, 2.8 billion phones ran Google's Android operating system and thus were subject to the ways that Google surveils them.
The ultimate goal should be Freedom, complete Freedom, but the position of "Wait until it's 100% Free" isn't going to work for many people. If we can get even 1% of people to de-Google their device and run a Free OS with Free apps, even if there are some binary blobs, just 1%, we'd be at 35 million people. That's almost the entire population of Canada (38 million).
I'd rather move 38 million people into the FLOSS world, using Free Software, understanding our ethos and supporting our community- and most importantly, out of the hands of companies who harm them, rather than tell them "Wait until we can give you a 100% Free experience." These people need our help now.
2. If you take this position to its logical conclusion, you will demand a 100% Free physical computer as well. This is possible now, or at least partially possible though not yet 100% practical.
With phones, the radio itself is proprietary, and that's by design. There are requirements of the device by the FCC (in the US) that allow the phone to take over the functions of the primary CPU and memory, even.
Using a mobile phone is a compromise on its own and thus we return to the first problem- do we tell people "Don't use a mobile phone?" because at that point we're simply seen as Luddites in the eyes of most people and we lose the opportunity to help others.
The threat of surveillance is real, and I'd rather take a measured approach than tell people to just get rid of their devices altogether.
When I started using Free Software in 1997, it started out as a pragmatism thing. It's only later that I learned about the ethics. Let's give people real alternatives today!
> do we tell people "Don't use a mobile phone?" because at that point we're simply seen as Luddites in the eyes of most people and we lose the opportunity to help others.
That's what I always tell people when they ask me how to do x in a secure and/or private manner on their phone and after some discussion most of them get it. Of course it's not practical but imo people need to be sensitized to how shitty almost all software actually is and that you can only have compromises. Also you can't just get someone to use FLOSS for tactical reasons, they have to know about the why and how or some of them will poison the community. I've seen way too many people acting entitled to have some feature they think is missing build immediately when they don't intend to pay the developers or do the slightest bit of work themselves. FLOSS isn't about being an alternative to commercial software but about enabling users to do whatever they want with their machines and this has to be communicated to new users that aren't familiar.
There's nothing wrong with taking this position for oneself. You can certainly restrict yourself to a 100% Free stack, but there are two big problems with this position:
1. We have an existing threat right now that is not theoretical but entirely practical and immediate, and that is the surveillance system built into every smart phone that runs a proprietary OS- or roughly 3.5 billion devices. In 2020, 2.8 billion phones ran Google's Android operating system and thus were subject to the ways that Google surveils them.
The ultimate goal should be Freedom, complete Freedom, but the position of "Wait until it's 100% Free" isn't going to work for many people. If we can get even 1% of people to de-Google their device and run a Free OS with Free apps, even if there are some binary blobs, just 1%, we'd be at 35 million people. That's almost the entire population of Canada (38 million).
I'd rather move 38 million people into the FLOSS world, using Free Software, understanding our ethos and supporting our community- and most importantly, out of the hands of companies who harm them, rather than tell them "Wait until we can give you a 100% Free experience." These people need our help now.
2. If you take this position to its logical conclusion, you will demand a 100% Free physical computer as well. This is possible now, or at least partially possible though not yet 100% practical.
With phones, the radio itself is proprietary, and that's by design. There are requirements of the device by the FCC (in the US) that allow the phone to take over the functions of the primary CPU and memory, even.
Using a mobile phone is a compromise on its own and thus we return to the first problem- do we tell people "Don't use a mobile phone?" because at that point we're simply seen as Luddites in the eyes of most people and we lose the opportunity to help others.
The threat of surveillance is real, and I'd rather take a measured approach than tell people to just get rid of their devices altogether.
When I started using Free Software in 1997, it started out as a pragmatism thing. It's only later that I learned about the ethics. Let's give people real alternatives today!